Accept custom or AI-built software using a founder-run test plan for customer journeys, permissions, repeat actions, and failures.
A good demo proves that one path worked once. It says little about duplicate actions, wrong permissions, missing information, slow services, or a customer using a smaller device.
Brownsmith's agent work has shown that written instructions alone do not always produce the intended action. You will turn the risks in a brief into repeatable checks across the interface, API, business rules, and recovery path.
The result is a release test plan another person can run and a decision record for what must be fixed before launch.
Use this guide’s decisions and templates with your team or the developer, agency, or coding agent doing the work. Keep the scope clear and agree what evidence you will use to review the result.
Non-technical founders working with consultants, developers, agencies, freelancers, or AI coding agents.
No engineering experience is required. Bring a product idea, proposal, or existing software decision to examine.
Put the guide to work
Test a normal case, a credible failure, and an unauthorised or duplicate action before accepting the workflow. Create a short, repeatable test run that covers the workflow customers pay for and the failures that can harm trust.
Illustrative product or service: A paid report service with sign-in, checkout, and report delivery
Use the same fictional request-tracker project through planning, building, testing and deployment. Each stage gives you an artifact to carry into the next.
The bd-guide-skillsfolder turns this path into a reusable skill. Open its SKILL.md, follow your assistant's skill-loading instructions, and ask it to guide your own small app through the four stages. Read the scope and permissions before use.
Website tech and content analysis — Run a focused website review and distinguish observed defects from recommendations.
Continue the decision path
Brief a builder or coding agent, review the hidden system as well as the interface, and accept the result with repeatable tests.